Abstract: In this presentation, I illustrate my recent results of the evolution of a current sheet in a Poynting dominated plasma. We model the relativistic current sheet with cold background plasma using the relativistic resistive magnetohydrodynamic approximation, and solve its temporal evolution numerically. 2-dimensional numerical results show that the initially induced plasmoid triggers a secondary tearing instability. We find the plasmoid-chain greatly enhances the reconnection rate, which becomes independent of the Lundquist number, when this exceeds a critical value. Since magnetic reconnection is expected to play an important role in various high energy astrophysical phenomena, our results can be used for explaining the physical mechanism of them. I also give some comments on their 3-dimensional extension.
Place: Physics Dept. Meeting Room, 2th floor, IST